About Laurie Marshall

Laurie Marshall is a painter, writer and educator. The subject of her paintings reflect her love of and fascination with people, nature and religion. Her work is in public and private collections around the world.

Her writing includes five intergenerational plays using personal narratives, visual images, music and movement and three plays based on her images. "Stories from the Dust in the Corner" was performed as a multi-media piece in churches, theaters and at the National Hospice Convention.

For almost thirty years, she's made murals and dramas with children in public, private and alternative schools. She has also used visual art and storytelling in consensus building, leadership training, conflict prevention and values clarification with government organizations (NASA, Department of Interior, Army Corps of Engineers) and social service agencies (Hospitals, Hospices and Foster Homes). For Marshall, art is a tool to clarify what's important, to strengthen community and to connect with the Creator. She is a Quaker.

She majored in History and Education at Antioch College and received an M.A. from Beacon College in Art and Education. She's studied painting at the Art Student's League of New York City. Her teaching includes being an adjunct professor at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh, Pa. and Lord Fairfax Community College in Virginia and visual training for teachers through Polaroid Education Program. She's served as an Artist-in-Residence for the Virginia Commission of the Arts and has carried out projects with the Virginia Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the American Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution.

She is the mother of two glorious sons, Jeremy Marshall Slack (b. 1982) and Daniel Marshall Slack (b.1986). After living in Rappahannock County, Virginia for 27 years with her former husband, artist Rex Slack, she moved to Pittsburgh, Pa,with her youngest son, Daniel, in 2001 for 4 years, to care for her father. Stanley Charles Marshall passed away Feb. 20th, 2005, five days before his 86th birthday, at home and at peace. In Sept., 2005, she came to Northern California, while still serving as an artist-in-residence at the Helen S. Faison Arts Academy in inner city Pittsburgh one week a month. She is currently living in Novato, California, teaching at Novato Charter School, a Waldorf-inspired public charter school, with her husband, Tom West.